From the depths of the Ottawa music scene comes the city’s self-proclaimed “yuckiest three-piece,” Backseat Dragon. Originally a solo project by Carrie Blair, a singer-songwriter and first-year anthropology student at Carleton University, the band has since expanded to include Sean Lundy and Cole Hallman.
Backseat Dragon’s playful pop-punk music often includes voice clips and other people joining in on the chorus, resulting in a unique, conversational sound. Lundy and Hallman also perform with Ottawa indie-punk group Sorry Snowman.
Backseat Dragon released their first full album, kick rocks in August. The Charlatan sat down with Blair and Lundy to discuss the band and their first album.
The Charlatan (TC): Where does the name Backseat Dragon come from?
Carrie Blair (CB): When Backseat Dragon was a solo project, and I didn’t want to have it just under my name, because I wanted it to one day not be a solo project. It came down to the point where I had this song ready to go and I just didn’t have a band name and I could never think of one that I liked enough. And so I just hit a word generator twice.. It gave me Backseat Dragon and I was like okay, and then stuck with it.
TC: Why do you describe yourselves as the “yuckiest three-piece” in Ottawa?
CB: I feel like we get that a lot and we don’t really have an answer.
Sean Lundy (SL): I definitely have an answer but I never want to say it because I don’t want to sound too pompous, but I made the term.
CB: Oh true! Yeah, you did!
SL: I never wanted to be like, “Actually that was my idea,” but for ages, I’ve always said, “Man I would really love to just make another band, or join a band, just like a super yucky three-piece.”
TC: How does Sean and Cole’s involvement in Sorry Snowman affect your group?
SL: It’s so convenient.
CB: We have a jam space in my house now, but we used to practice at this place called Jam Barn in Orleans, and it saved a bunch of money. Because we’re similar genres, it’s easy if we need an open spot on the bill. If Backseat Dragon gets asked and we can’t play it, Snowman does it, or we’ll offer it to each other.
We went on tour with each other in the summer, which was just too easy. We could fit all of us into one van, split gas and all stay at the same place. If you have a two-band bill, the amount of people is normally like eight or nine, and we were just five and two bands. Saying “Can you house two bands?” is way different than saying, “Can you house five people?”
TC: How was making your first full-length album?
CB: It was awesome, it was really fun. We did it all with this guy named Robbie Vigneault and he put up with us a lot, which was really nice. He mixed and mastered all our stuff and recorded it at his home studio. And he put up with us because the hours that we have free together are super limited. So we would go to his house from 10 p.m. until like 2 or 3 a.m.
SL: When we hang out and it’s just the band, things get really goofy. But when we have to be around somebody we don’t know that well, and it’s a pretty professional situation, we always forget to turn off the sillies.
CB: It was really nice because a lot of the songs on kick rocks are songs I wrote at like, 16. It felt very fulfilling to have these songs that I wrote in my mom’s basement heard in the way that I originally thought of them.
TC: I’ve heard there’s a bit of a story behind the kick rocks cover?
CB: Yeah, the house. The last track on the album is the only acoustic one and it was supposed to be similar to Splash Pad, the solo, original Backseat Dragon EP. It’s funny because I wrote that song about how sad I would be if I had to move out of the house I was living in, and then a few months later we got evicted and did have to move out. The house was super awesome. We all lived in this house and put on a bunch of house shows. It got to the point where if someone put on their story, “There’s a house show tonight,” people just assumed it was there.
Backseat Dragon will perform at Club SAW on Dec. 2. Tickets can be found here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Featured image by William Stevens.
